GiffGaff - free internet on pay as you go

GiffGaff (O2 child company) have reduced their bundle deals by half price through July but more importantly have stated that there will be free internet on all their SIMs until the 1st of October 2010.

Their bundles can be found here. 100 minutes/100 texts is now £5 per month or 8p min/4p text without the bundles. Free data on both.

I've been with them about a month or so and it's fantastic. GG and Virgin were the only ones I could find that were doing pay as you go direct debit. No more stupid top up hassle.

Help is provided through very active forums and the means to reward helpful posters. Speaking of which, if you sign up I might be able to earn a few points as a referrer [Coastal].

Yeah, I'm with Giffgaff and am quite happy. But the MMS issue is a little irritating, mainly because I can't send or receive any - but I think it might be because of my phone settings. But the unlimited internet more than makes up for it.

sport wrote:
Yeah, I'm with Giffgaff and am quite happy. But the MMS issue is a little irritating, mainly because I can't send or receive any - but I think it might be because of my phone settings. But the unlimited internet more than makes up for it.

what phone are you using? i had to set up the MMS settings manually based on one of the help forms, but once i did that it works fine.

does unlimited internet actually mean unlimited internet? can i stream sky go on the train now?

sport wrote:
Yeah, I'm with Giffgaff and am quite happy. But the MMS issue is a little irritating, mainly because I can't send or receive any - but I think it might be because of my phone settings. But the unlimited internet more than makes up for it.

what phone are you using? i had to set up the MMS settings manually based on one of the help forms, but once i did that it works fine.

does unlimited internet actually mean unlimited internet? can i stream sky go on the train now?

I've got an Acer Liquid Metal. I tried some settings I got from the site with no luck - should try again though. Any links?

Unlimited does mean unlimited, but you can't use it for tethering. Streaming is fine, but I'm not sure what the speed is like on Sky Go.

Yeah, giffgaff are generally very reasonable. It might be worth noting that their whole network was down for most of last Friday. Voice, texts and data. Which doesn't happen to any of the bigger networks.

sport wrote:
Unlimited does mean unlimited, but you can't use it for tethering.

So it's not actually unlimited then. This really enrages me, especially after moving to the Czech Republic where largely the same networks you have in the UK (Three, O2, Vodafone etc) allow tethering even on PAYG (which was hugely useful when I first moved here).

Ok, I can just about tolerate some kind of limit when it's a free data plan, but even then: what difference does it make to them what you're using your data allowance for? It's like going to the shop in the morning because you've forgotten milk for your cereal, and being told "nope, that milk's just for your tea, if you want it for cereal you'll have to buy this identical milk for £20".

Naked profiteering, although it fits in with my view of what the UK's become: the little guy being gouged time and time again by massive companies and the people who run them.

I'd accept that excuse if UK 3G networks were remotely fast enough to do that, and if it wasn't for the fact that each of the main UK networks also operates here in the Czech Republic without such a restriction. In fact, whenever I try to explain it to Czech people they're always astounded.

So, I'll stick to labelling it as naked profiteering. Unfortunately people in the UK have become so used to being shafted by multinational corporations, usually with the government's help, that many people don't even recognise when it's happening anymore. Ok, GiffGaff are much better than their UK competition, but when you pick a UK mobile phone network you're only choosing how hard you're permitting yourself to get shafted. There's no option, short of not having a phone, to say "no thanks, I'll skip the shafting please".

Spending time in a culture that doesn't work that way is a real eye-opener. I'm sure they'll fall in line here before too long, but for now I'm loving the fact that I'm treated as a valuable customer by the phone operators here, whereas their UK branches treated me as a mug to be exploited.

God forbid you go to America, then. Also, when I was with Giffgaff I did a little bit of tethering through Android when there was no other internet about (laptop, Kindle, even a 360) and I didn't get any nastygrams or anything.

Is there some catch I'm not seeing like your credit vanishes if you don't top up or something ?

For me, £10 goodybag would last a month so am I right in thinking, I could run down that £10 credit with texts, calls etc. and delay topping up until later because I think it would end up stacking, use for 3 months, top up each month, I would still have £30 credit for example meaning I would have to blitz it eventually. Right ?

You won't have to top up any more than £10 a month if you buy the goodybag. I'm on that one and you can't go wrong. The unlimited internet really is unlimited unless you tether your phone or some shit. You can also set up a Top Up/Goodybag purchase system in the background with your bank details so it runs a bit like a contract and just sets up the goodybag automatically each month.

THFourteen wrote:
I don't think you get any credit with a £10 goodybag it just covers the Internet, texts and 100minutes that month. Credit for further calls and mms is on top of that.

It must mean the top up service is separate from the goodybag but as long as you buy a goodybag every month you won't be left with nothing.

I thought the goodybag was the top up service like O2 etc. You pay £10, get mins, text etc. then you can run down your £10 credit. Bit confusing when they advertise it as pay as you go but not quite the same. It's basically a 1 month deal with optional pay as you go.

Also, I'm pretty sure that you get an extra five pound credit when you first sign-up, which CAN be used after your first goody bag expires.

Another great aspect is the fact that you get the equivalent of £5.00 free credit for every other person that you get to 'sign up' - I've managed to get another four people onto the network, which also means free GiffGaff to GiffGaff calls.